Tales of the Abyss - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating
 

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of Tales of the Abyss ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about the DVD only footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

• General impression of the series.
• Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
• Thoughts about the animation quality.
• Characters/Character Design
• Voice Acting
  
  
• Which kind of footage (DVD only) you feel you'd really like to see.
• What the show meant to you.
• What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Soundtrack: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Enjoyment: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun :)

Hai, the "greatest Tales on the PS2"'s story ends.

And it was a big disappointment. I guess that as Tales, it has a default part that is interesting, but in general, everything was disappointing.
The story uses so much terminology, there are parts you can't understand. The actual story was full of people that should be dead but keep on coming back for some wonderfully wonderful reason, wasn't exactly the most interesting, and the ending was what... ? Luke just comes back after a few years? For no reason? Why is he revived? Don't tell me he survived but it took him those years to swim all the way back from the island?
And then the fights... Horrid. One hit deaths, cheat song that just finishes everything, etc. So in the end, what was the reason for Largo's armor if a single arrow kills him?

And very surprising of Tales, but by the end, I did not like the entire party.
Jade and Anies... Anies was purely annoying and Jade was the unforgivable version of Tenebrae.
Natalie, I'm indifferent. Nothing amazing or special...
Tear has as interesting of a personality as the rock on the side of the road (and as the owner of the cheat song, I have a bit of a grudge.
Guy was probably the most likable one around. As expected of Nice Guy. 3G.
Luke... Before he cut his hair, he was very entertaining, that idiocy. Then what, he cuts his hair and looses any personality he had. Incredibly boring guy... Bleh...
Can't exactly say the bad guy was exactly unique either.

The character designs, OP, and ED are the few things good about this though.

The visual quality of the art was... up and downs. There were some episodes that were just strange here.
And no one can forget Ache's run in the OP. Now that is funny. So I'll give a point for this.

Haa... Well, let's look at the good points. Thanks to seeing the anime, I don't have to bother looking for play videos of this thing.
Yet it is a shame to see this animated over Rebirth or Legendia, which had stories that were far better than this thing... Haaa...
Come to think of it, there wasn't much name screaming was there? Wanted to do it along... Claireeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeee!!

I thought the rendition of the game to anime was done very well. There were some gripes about scenes and characters being left out, but then with only 26 episodes they were probably on a time limit in presenting the material given. Well, there are the OVA's for the Tales of Symphonia that continues in Tethealla that is in the works to look forward too.

Is average to me. Animation is good, yet quality of the actual story is :|
Antagonists were beaten extremely easily...most of them 1-hit-KO with something stupid like an ARROW and a CUT, and all the solution to every problem they had was for Tear to sing
The ending is quite the cliffhanger(my pet peeve)

Is still entertaining, though I doubt I will rewatch

In order to make battles "realistic," they had to make enemies, even bosses, go down in one or two good hits. I don't expect blow-for-blow battles of attrition like what tended to happen in my playthrough, but the battles should have been more intense, like Sunrise's other shows.

The Legretta battles got shortchanged.

While the beginning was fine, in the second half there was too much repetition of the technobabble and explanations of the world's structure.

Overall, it's an adequate adaptation, and certainly not as horrid as Phantasia's. But it's definitely also not as streamlined as Symphonia. I've played all of these, so I know.

8/10

I liked the series, but was sorely disappointed by a distinct lack of Mystic Artes. Only a few were shown, though Jade's Indignation somewhat makes up for it all.

I'd have loved to have seen Akashic Torment or Guren Senshouran.

Besides that, the series had some very nice animation, and played very close to the game's story and lines. A little too close, if you ask me...

Overall, a 7/10. It could definitely have been better, but at least it didn't suck.

I have yet to finish watching this anime due to various reasons, (watched up to episode 18) but I have played the original game.



Anyway... I shouldn't bitch/fangirl so much about the characters. As for the anime itself... Great animation, although QUALITY at times.
The story of the game was abridged nicely, I'm surprised they managed to get something decent out of that terrible mess of a story in the game.
Voice acting's fine. I absolutely love the lisp in Ion's voice, so moé~
Soundtrack was just... Okay. Was good, but not great, and it didn't stand out much most of the time. Opening was terrible, I grew to hate Karma about half-way through the game due to how much it's spammed, and it's not that good of a song in the first place. Ending wasn't anything special.

7.5/10
Decent anime, actually managed to make the game seem enjoyable. Though the terrible of Luke and Tear made me stop watching it. I guess I'll finish watching it sometime this weekend, I wanna see some Sync~ Opinions might change whenever I do.

I'm not sure whether it was more because of the handy visuals (like a diagram of how the Absorption/Radiation Gate work, or shots of the fonon belt around the planet) or simply the fact that I played the game beforehand for a little familiarity with all the esoteric terminology, but one way or another I'm happy that I finally actually kind of sort of somewhat slightly understand what happened in the Tales of the Abyss plot. Almost. Now there are only maybe 19 things I don't get instead of 26. ;)

Plot's still a mess, though. I won't harp on too long because that's not the anime's fault, but basically in Abyss I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm just supposed to watch things without any critical thinking.


What is the anime's fault:

1) The characters. They had twenty-six episodes, but I still don't think they managed to portray the full personalities of each character and the dynamics between them. Guy was handled very well, and I don't blame them much for Tear since I couldn't find any depth or ambiguity to her even in the game; the only thing I was looking for but didn't get with Anime Tear was her getting angry at others and showing more pride as a soldier, which is a loss but not a big one. Other than those two, though:



2) The music. I'm not sure why they didn't just pull a bunch of themes directly from the game or make arranged versions, because Motoi Sakuraba's soundtrack was superb and certainly much, much better than the very typical anime music.


3) The fights. First, I guess I should commend them a little because I've never seen action RPG battles translate to an anime as well as the ones in very late Abyss episodes (from 19 on). The group fights were cool and everyone played a part, although for some reason Natalia didn't get to use a named move until the end and I don't think Luke ever did.

That's not to say they're good, just that they're better than other RPG adaptations I've seen. Everybody else pointed out the major problem already, but usually it only took one hit to finish off an enemy. Lots of blocking and dodging and magic shields before a hit connects, which is nice, but here's the thing... the Abyss heroes are fighting warriors called The Six God-Generals. With titles like that, they should be able to take some hits. I guess what I wanted to see was the enemies being gradually worn down: some cuts here and there, arrow nicks, magic hits that just scrape someone, and things like that. Instead it's either miss-or-instant-kill and that's not very engaging because it gives off the impression that in each individual fight only one or two of the six characters weren't throwaway extras.



Maybe it's just me, but after watching Symphonia and Abyss I really think these Tales anime series need to stop trying to play the stories and characters so straight and serious. The game skits may be completely out of place and probably aren't even canon, but they're a good method to bring out the characters' individual quirks and demonstrate what their personalities are like when they're not involved in constant life-or-death situations.

In a game I'll automatically want the heroes to succeed unless I hate them, simply because I'm the one playing them. But in any non-interactive story, having those little hints that the heroes would probably be having very enjoyable lives if not for whatever's threatening them is what makes it possible for me to care. If the story tells me Tear is going to die, it's vital that I see flashes of character so I can think that if she's gone the world should miss her personality--but in the anime she doesn't have one, so what's the big deal?

She needs to get angry. She needs Anise to poke fun at her feelings toward Luke. She needs to watch with mixed horror and disgust and finally shout down the rest of the cast when they make up conspiracy theories that the only reason Jade can be calm and collected inside a volcano is that he's hiding cooling devices inside his uniform, and start trying to take off his clothes to find out.

These are just examples and I really mean they apply across the board for all characters in the Abyss adaptation (and Symphonia for that matter), but basically they would convey a sense of liveliness that's actually very missed.



Anyway, I liked this way, way, way more than the Symphonia adaptation, but that's not saying very much. 5/10... though just barely. I'm a harsh judge at times, I guess. :P

Well I just finished the last episode. I applaud the fate vs free will theme of the story. I didn't get to play the game but if I did, I think this would've been one of my favorite games out there. The ending was adorable and the amount of character development was very well done. They didn't appear forced and no major character was left out. That was good. I'm pretty satisfied with it.

My only complaint in this whole series, and I mean out of all 26 episodes and minor flaws, is that Tear should've gone and glomped-tackled Luke right at the end.;)

Ah thanks for writing my opinion of this anime :p I'll give this a 5/10 just because for some strange reason i managed to watch it to the end :twitch: Btw that cheat song felt like the usual "lag spike" while playing a mmorpg :heh:

It was funny how guys get killed and revive so randomly and without any explanation at all.... Lets see... first we have Largo being stabbed by Jane but somehow he appears a few episodes after saying "like that kind of wound would kill me" >.< Then we have Arieta getting herself killed with all the monsters because of... eh i have no idea why... she loved Ion-sama but abducts him and let Van use him while knowing that would shorten Ion's life... and somehow the "mama killer" title went from Luke to Anise xD And what makes it more illogical is that we have 2 kids that cant be over 10 years old fighting, killing and getting killed like if it was perfectly normal.... the only death that felt real and with some meaning was when Ion died... nice guy helping others even when dying and actually saying something important as his last words...

And the ending... if someone showed me the last 10 minutes of that episode i would have bought the anime the same day but considering all that happened and the personality of each character.... i simply cant say i get what they were thinking when making it -.- I mean... Luke went to free Lorelei but why would he be unable to come back (?) Why does it take 2 years and why was it necesary for him to fuse with Asch when he was the one alive and complete and Asch the flacid one >.< And what makes this more unsettling is that somehow Luke became some kind of hero that saved the world when all he did was kill a powerless and injured Van with a magical sword...

If she did that then the ending were this new fused "AschLuke" supersayajing (even has longer hair..) getting both Natalia and Tear wouldnt be possible would it (?)

Look it was either make the battles all long and stupid and not be able to finish the story or make the battles a little less RPG like (I hit you you hit me) and still fit everything in to 26 episodes.

You realize that this is pretty much just what JRPGs are like right? These definitely aren't real worlds, but rather fantasy worlds so logic doesn't always come into play the way you would think. Different rules, different cultures, different idealogies....oh Tales of.....

You are right though about the heroes not necessarily being so heroic which is a running theme in the Tales games. They usually depict two parties clashing rather than a hero versus a villain, but you just end up playing as one side and experiencing things from their point of view, which skews the perspective, but not enough to make you feel unsettled by some of the things the party members do. It's been that way since the first game actually, but I think Tales took it to it's limits with pretty much every party member who has done something shameful to one of the other ones or just someone in general. The other thing Tales games are big on is Xanatos gambits. Anyway I actually swear Luke came off as more likeable in the anime than in the game.

Oh and the Luke is a hero thing is supposed to feel ironic. It's pretty much played that way from the beginning and I don't think at any point ever stops being a factor. Tales of The Abyss is not a story about a just world by any stretch of the imagination. There's like one character I think even qualifies as innocent and that is Ion.

That's probably because it sets out to tackle that theme from the very beginning rather than just tacking it on at the end. Fate vs. Free Will is in the very framework of pretty much everything that happens in Tales of The Abyss. I still sympathize with Van even now over the reasoning for his goals by the way. It's the Tales of Phantasia twist all over again.

But im not talking about a game... it is the anime im talking about. And just because it is a fantasy world it doesnt mean it shoudnt make sense.... actually rather than a different world, it is more like a mix of different real cultures, religion. I mean... no matter how good the idea, you need to know how to express it / comunicate it to other and this anime failed to do that.

Again you are talking about how it should be in the game.... they clearly failed to make their ideas clear while making this series.... All i could see was a useless main character screwing up around and the only reason he was put into the "leader/hero" position was because of what he was (a replica).

It should feel ironic? I didnt find it funny or even interesting at all. Had to put up with an annoying protagonist for most of the series.

What makes this frustrating is that the plot had so much potential... even the characters had really interesting personalities and history but somehow they managed to convert all this into a mediocre anime that only ppl that played the jrpg would understand >.<

And for the anime to be in a just world or not has nothing to do with my disliking this series. My favorite animes are similar fantasy action anime where the protagonist finds himself/herself in the middle of a much unjust world... like Fate Stay Night, Full Metal Panic, Kurenai and many more...

And you can have this disgusting cookie back. :frustrated:

Well the anime is based on the game, what else do you expect? It also makes perfect sense for the world it takes place in, you just weren't paying attention. I mean the show literally explained everything about everything to the point where it came across as overkill at times so I don't see how there is any room for not understanding the story and characters unless you just stopped caring or something. There's a huge difference between not liking something and it not making sense and it amazes me that people still do not realize this. Also I highlighted the revealing part of your post that tells me that you obviously missed a lot of what was going on.

Also I don't even understand why you are bringing up those other shows because they literally have nothing at all to do with Tales of. It's not even the same type of fantasy. Also why did you expect Luke to be a stereotypical stock hero? The character is incredibly flawed and indeed he pretty much got the label of hero for being able to use Hyper Resonance, but as we found out that was a sham and so was he. That was the whole point, you were supposed to hate Luke for most of the story for being so clueless as to how he was being used by Van.

In the end I still fail to see how any of what you described is the series fault in the slightest.

Anyway that's just my angry opinion. Talking about this though has kind of made me want to go back and start that new game + on the actual game that I had been meaning to for a while.

Hmm thinking about it, you might be right.... the shallow plot, illogical actions, boring script, etc isnt the main reason i dont like this anime. It is simply how plain lame the main character is that i cant bring myself to like anything of this series.

I even find the guy in Chaos Head more interesting because at least it was fun to watch his lameless to the point of living with his delusional doll-girl inside a container on a rooftop *.*

IMO, Jade is a carbon copy of Roy Mustang the Flame Alchemist from FMA.

Both are career military
Both are Colonels
Both are extremely powerful w/ magic (hell, one of the intros for the series shows Jade using some Mustang-ish flame attack in the beginning)
Both are sarcastic on the outside, but cares for his underlings/comrades on the inside

And for some reason, the way they portrayed Jade in the anime had be thinking he was gonna be the final "hidden" boss at the end.
I'm very disappointed he wasn't the final antagonist... >_<